A Capitalist world? Imagining, Envisioning and Enacting Futures of Work and Organization Centered around Informal and Diverse Economies

A dominant story told by mainstream political and economic elites about the nature and trajectory of our global economies argues that not only is capitalism - the formal economy - becoming more hegemonic, but that its continued expansion is inevitable. Responding directly to this narrative, the aim of the chapter is to problematize - and ultimately reject - such a capitalocentric reading of the economy. It does this by critically focusing on two core assumptions in this dominant meta-narrative: the modernization thesis, which suggests that ‘developing’ countries’ economies are becoming increasingly formalized over time, and the marginalization thesis, which argues that the work undertaken in the informal economy is marginal and disappearing: only engaged in as a last resort by desperate individuals. Drawing on evidence drawn from both the Household Work Practice Studies in the UK, and the International Labour Organisation surveys of informal employment across 41 ‘developing’ economies, it is shown that far from witnessing a shift from informal to formal economic spheres, informal economies are pervasive and growing. Such a finding carries with it many significant implications, and the chapter emphasizes particularly on how we might frame and re-think the future possibilities of work and organisation focused on non-capitalist practices.